It was a talking point that Trump had in his first term. He tends not to let go of bad ideas once they get into his head.
At the time, people didn’t take it seriously. With the Ukraine War, Europe feels like it has to now. But it’s going to be domestic production, not paying US MIC companies like Trump was thinking.
The 5% is probably too much, but its realistically 3.5% the othet 1.5% can be spend on infrastructure (like make bridges strong enough so tanks can drive over them), on cyber defense and other things that are not weapons.
Also it’s about deterrence, when we spend enough Russia can’t attack unless they match the spending, this is part why the Soviet Union collapsed.
It was a talking point that Trump had in his first term. He tends not to let go of bad ideas once they get into his head.
At the time, people didn’t take it seriously. With the Ukraine War, Europe feels like it has to now. But it’s going to be domestic production, not paying US MIC companies like Trump was thinking.
The 5% is probably too much, but its realistically 3.5% the othet 1.5% can be spend on infrastructure (like make bridges strong enough so tanks can drive over them), on cyber defense and other things that are not weapons.
Also it’s about deterrence, when we spend enough Russia can’t attack unless they match the spending, this is part why the Soviet Union collapsed.